Doctors seeing parents who don't know how to prepare healthy family dinners

DOCTORS are increasingly being asked by parents of overweight children how to cook quick, cheap and simple fresh food.

- Giles Sheldrick

In further evidence of the country's growing obesity crisis, medics say a disproportionate amount of their time is now spent teaching the basics of nutrition.

One GP said: "I had one mum and her child was overweight, but she was a young parent and she didn't know how to cook dinners.

We spent a lot of time giving her worksheets how to cook, make potato and beans, rather than going to the fish and chip shop." at the The insight comes from GPs, primary care and school nurses who spoke to researchers University of Birmingham for a snapshot of the epidemic.

It comes after the Daily Express reported that as many as 10million Britons are addicted to industrially manufactured junk food in an obesity crisis thought to cost the NHS £58billion a year. Miranda Pallan, professor of child and adolescent public health at the University of Birmingham, said: "This study brings a fresh awareness about the pressures healthcare professionals face, including the limitations in trying to provide preventative care for young people.